DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Description) The five goals of our Cancer Research Center during the planning period are: (1) develop a comprehensive cancer center that maintains the highest scientific rigor in basic research studies; (2) advance the knowledge of environmental, sociological and ethnic contributions to carcinogenesis; (3) promote multidisciplinary collaboration and utilization of institutional physical and human resources; (4) foster the development of new cancer research scientists; and (5) improve patient care, prevention, education and outreach activities within the community and region as a means of expanding the population available for our clinical and translational trials. We will accomplish these goals by synthesizing and integrating the common aims of NCI cancer centers with the unique mission and goals of our Cancer Research Center. We will carry out a number of initiatives to strengthen the basic and clinical research of our Cancer Research Center but the way in which we design and implement these initiatives will be directed by our unique mission. We propose three distinct, but complementary, approaches to building and developing our Cancer Research Center. 1) We will use a portion of the Planning Grant budget for the development of new research programs in specific areas; 2) We will extend basic research activities into our existing multidisciplinary clinical programs; 3) A number of organizational issues will be resolved to allow us to take maximal research advantage of our geographical, academic and clinical diversity, and broad university base of basic research. These three approaches to achieving our Center's goals will reinforce each other, in that all three will be directed by two complementary paradigms: 1) to build research programs which are focused on the oncology issues that reflect the population we care for (underprivileged, urban, minority); 2) to build upon and integrate our Medical Center's existing basic and clinical research strengths. Our broad vision is to become a NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center, specializing in research, clinical trials and prevention in communities with vulnerable racially and ethnically diverse populations in poor urban areas. Ultimately, we will increase our understanding of environmental, sociological, and ethnic cancer etiology, improve patient care, and decrease the development of the cancers in this population through enhanced translational research efforts.